


A Place In The Sun

by Lani



Category: Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot | They Call Me Jeeg (2015)
Genre: Funeral, Gen, Original Character Death(s), just dudes being bros, occasionally Fabio is a decent lad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27497464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lani/pseuds/Lani
Summary: Ricca deals with a heavy loss but at least he doesn't have to deal with it alone.
Relationships: Fabio Cannizzaro & Ricca
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	A Place In The Sun

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to [furiously](https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiously) for beta-reading this piece!

The issue with Rome is that the weather never fits the occasion. In real life, nobody slaps a grey filter on the scenery to make sure it’s adequately miserable. That’s no different in Tor Bella Monaca than in Garbatella. With garbage spilling onto the pavement out of fallen bins and rats breeding in a nest of dirty needles, it’s still as sunny as a damn kids’ cartoon. The sky is garishly blue. The kind of blue that makes you want to gouge your eyes out if you stare at it too long. It just keeps going. It’s just as void as blackness, but faker. In that void the sun hangs like a shiny cent piece, not yellow but white. It’s so bright that there aren’t even any shadows to be had, so bright it’s almost blinding. The earth cracks under his shoes where he scuffs at the dying grass.

Riccardo keeps his hands in his pockets and lets the sun glare holes into the nape of his neck. Whose fucking idea was that anyway? Black? He’s getting roasted alive in his cheap suit. The fabric itches against his skin and he’s all but sweated through the white T-shirt he’s got underneath. Serves him right, he thinks. He shouldn’t have let himself be talked into this. It’s not him. Flowers and candles and damp handshakes all around. It’s all just an excuse to air your bullshit in public anyway. Get some sweet clout from friends and family for your one-act tragedy. Performative shit, all that sobbing. No, that’s not Riccardo’s style. He keeps digging the point of his shoe into the ground where he stands. He’s made a decent little dent by the time the last faceless visitor has shoved off. 

There weren’t too many guests, but a sizable amount stuck around till the end. Some of them he vaguely remembers as shapes in the doorway, voices on the phone. They were always hostile presences in his life, disturbances. They came around to argue, to accuse, to wheedle some money out of his mother. Every single one of them a leech, only out for themselves. His aunts and uncles, cousins twice removed, they’ve all made the trip for the occasion, and they all looked at him with their big sad money-hungry eyes. Again they held out their hands, crooning about how much they loved Cesarina and how grown-up he looked now and how sorry they were. Not sorry enough, in Riccardo’s opinion.  _ You let her die _ , he thought as he shook their hands and let them clap him on the back.  _ She needed help and you let her die.  _

It still smells like fresh soil, but the scent is quick to dry. He managed to shell out for a marker at least.  _ In memory of a loving mother _ . Yeah, well. She did her best, he’s sure. That’s not even a platitude. He  _ is  _ sure. Love just doesn’t put any damn food on the table. Doesn’t make your deadbeat son stay in school. Doesn’t clean your blow for you. Her best wasn’t good enough and that’s the end of that. There’s that pressure in his chest again. He squints at the plaque in the ground above the new grave and grimaces when the sunlight reflects off it, stabs him in the eyes. What the fuck do you plant on a grave?

“That went better than I thought.” A voice pipes up behind him. Riccardo blinks furiously and inhales. He doesn’t have to turn his head to see who it is that’s come by to keep him company. He turns anyway. Fabio comes trudging up the small incline. He looks marginally more put together than Riccardo. His hair is slicked back as always, with that upsetting wet sheen to it. He’s got a suit on, too, but that’s more par for the course for him; he’s a peacock. It’s not quite black, but he’s made an effort to find something similar in hue. He cut a fine enough figure in front of the mourners, filling in for Riccardo when he practically went nonverbal. So he supposes he’s got nothing to gripe about.

“You paid the guy?”

“The priest?” Fabio corrects him with an amused lilt to his voice. It falls a little flat all the same. A distracted hand comes to scratch at his chin. “Yes, I took care of it. Don’t worry about it.”

Riccardo swipes his tongue over his teeth. Something’s stuck in his molar that he can’t get rid of for the life of him. “Good. How much do I owe you?”

“Forget it.”

“How much?”

“I said forget it.”

Fabio’s been like this all week. It’s getting on Riccardo’s nerves. The last person he expected to get out the velvet gloves was ‘lo Zingaro’ himself. But he’s got moments like this, real spells of decency. Fucking creepy, that’s what it is. Riccardo figures it’s on him. The moment the medics pissed off, he was on the phone with Fabio. It seemed like the right thing to do. Fabio and Cesarina always got on. He had a knack for making her laugh, always the entertainer. He was better at it than Riccardo. No wonder she was always glad to host him. Hell, there were summers where he basically lived with them, back when he was still this feral raccoon of a kid. The two boys would sit on the ratty carpet in front of the TV and watch stupid cartoons all morning, while she slept off whatever high got her through the last night. Around 2 o’clock, she’d usually get up, chipper as all get out, and make some kind of lunch for them. It’s almost a physical pang to his chest, a crowbar cracking open his rib cage, to picture his mother in that kitchen, his kitchen now. She’d sing along off-key to some inane power ballad from the eighties and dance around them, much to Fabio’s delight and Riccardo’s embarrassment. It took Riccardo a while to puzzle out that she was doing it for their sake, putting on that show of aggressive happiness. As if that could somehow rub off on them. Well, it didn’t. 

Maybe Fabio’s honoring that. The free meals, the roof above his head during the nights when his piece of shit father was out for blood, Fabio’s blood to be precise. Yeah, he owed them. That’s what this is. That’s why he took care of the arrangements for the funeral when Riccardo couldn’t be bothered to get his ass off the couch. Why he basically hosted the damn thing by himself. Besides, he’s always up for being the center of attention. This probably suits him just fine. Well, as long as he’s settling the score. Took him long enough. 

The thoughts are acrid in his head, knocking against the walls of his skull, spilling over into other parts of him, staining everything like ink, like blood. It hurts to think so cruelly about something that could otherwise be read as simple kindness. But something in Riccardo’s brain won’t comply with that. Instead it spews bile. It tastes bitter at the back of his throat. Riccardo coughs it off. Okay, real talk: Fabio’s not half bad as far as friends go. He’s known him since they were toddlers, eating dirt together. Riccardo can list Fabio’s shortcomings off the top of his head: he’s an arrogant son of a whore, a sleaze, a delusional idiot, a complete maniac, too. But... He shows up. He’s got a soft touch. It’s gotten rougher with the years, but what hasn’t?

“Don’t know about you, but I think this is a pretty sweet spot we got for her.” Fabio remarks. Riccardo blinks. Shit, has he been talking this entire time? 

“It’s fine.” He agrees lamely. He doesn’t actually know what the difference is. Here or in some corner, what does it matter to his mother? She’s not here to see it. Fabio insisted, though, and Riccardo didn’t have the energy to fight him on that. He said it’d matter later. When the fuck is later? The sky is an oppressive weight on his shoulders and he hunches under it in a cemetery in TBM, just one step up from a landfill. A dumpster with a view.  _ How’d you like it, mamma?  _ Riccardo glares at the grave. 

He thinks, actually, she probably would like it. She was always so easy to impress. When was that, the day she took the two of them to that decrepit amusement park? It wasn’t decrepit then. It was all squeaky colors, fatty food and yowling children. It’s some water-logged concrete hell now. But Cesarina had taken them there when it was new, him and Fabio. As a treat. For whatever. For nothing, probably. It sounds absurd, that at some point in his life he was satisfied with carousel rides and cotton candy. Or that he and Fabio would each grab one of Cesarina’s hands and drag her from attraction to attraction, excitedly babbling about whatever it is children are interested in. There’s some kitschy picture of the three of them that she saved from that day. She treasured it, kept it in her wallet. She and ‘her boys’, in front of a food stand, laughing open-mouthed, eyes screwed shut, sticky hands in the air. In the picture Cesarina is hugging the two of them to her chest as if someone’s coming to rip them away from her. She’s holding on for dear life. It almost hurt. 

It hurts now. 

“Wanna go grab a drink?” Fabio’s elbow nudges his side. He’s really working for it. Needy fucker. “We don’t have to talk about this, if you don’t want to. I got enough work backlog for two months. You’ve been slacking off, you know?” 

Riccardo scoffs a laugh, a harsh sound somewhere in the depths of his tight chest. Fabio grins back with his teeth. Then his gaze softens, his smile closes. Riccardo notices for the first time that there’s a redness to Fabio’s eyes. They’re watery. Everybody’s just holding on for what it’s worth, hm? Riccardo nudges him back, knocks his shoulder into Fabio’s. Then he turns from the graveside and they make their way down to the graveled lane. He feels Fabio’s hand on his back, gently steering him. For once he leaves it there. 

“You’re paying, though.” 

“Go figure.”


End file.
